What do you do in a trustless world?

What do you do in a trustless world?

First of all : is “trustless” even a word? I know how English build/uses words, hence (or therefore) I can invent “trustless”. Voilà. I’m pretty sure to be understood, here.

What do you do in a trustless world?

Hmmm I think you need two different tools, which are a FILTER and a MACHINE.

1. The Filter is the Comical/Grotesque one. This helps to tolerate, to bear the world around.
2. The Machine is the wordy one. Accounts, Stories, Tales. This is it. The tendency to tell, to write, to invent ideas or stories from the craziness.

 

Where d’you see that? Which one do you choose? What is efficient, for you? Where does the “I wear a mask” intervene here? Do you hide your filter? Do you hide your machine?

What about this event, this process : “Abandonment of the Mask”? Another article. I know.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Dowsing Reality in my Head : What is “Emotional Reasoning”?

You feel an emotion, so you think it “proves” something is true, this is called Emotional Reasoning. Wikipedia gives a good example of that :

…even though a spouse has shown only devotion, a person using emotional reasoning might conclude, “I know my spouse is being unfaithful because I feel jealous.”

This is a good little clockwork to watch and to take to pieces, right?

Of course people use this concept as a negative thing, a flaw, a disorder. Path to depression and all…

You have to think about Reason :

“Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.”

We all know that, and we also know that within the informations we gather (facts, things we see, informations, things people say), our emotions have a power : they color all of these, in bright light or in shades of darkness.

So if I understand well, Emotional Reasoning is a disorder, when we narrow reason only on emotions. OK.

I need my readers. Help! This concept triggers questions and subtleties. Could this be a positive thing? Where do you put the instinct, in this process? How can reason and emotions weave together to make a strong tool? Can an emotion trigger a seek of informations? And what about the fact that new informations would braid with feelings, instinct and therefore emotions to help us draw maps for living? Where is the balance to find? How to wring a disorder into a power? Imagine your have this disorder : does it prove that if you feel something is true… it’s not? Mmhhh…

Sorry for my wobblenglish…

Thanks for reading!

 

A Way of Being in a Hole : Inventing Dawn

There are many ways to deal with depression, darkness, and feeling you’re stuck in a hole. You can cry alone, find someone who can help, you can complain, you can stay silent, you can think, you can fight to find your light, you can try to invent sparkles, you can be sarcastic, or become crazy, you can feel hope, or despair, you can wait, you can kill yourself.

Or you can invent your dawn.

Well, yes, it’s a feeling, or a decision, I don’t know. You’re in your dark hole like a forgotten filthy dog. Maybe you receive (or invent) your calling – it’s time. Maybe you just decide to move not your ass but your spirit.

You clean your sky from old squeaky moral rules, from guilt. You clean the pessimism. You want to increase your knowledge like a minstrel, a knight, a free spirit. Your refusal is joyful. You can almost guess and feel some new delights.

Rebirth. Convalescence. Regeneracy. Transition. A smell of new territories and above all : a new way to explore.

Jump out! You go girl!

Thanks for reading. Have a nice day!

 

 

The Castaway Syndrome

At some moments in your life, you really have the feeling that you’re “helped”. By whom, well, you will never know, silly!

If you want to spend time to figure it out, you’ll find books about that : God, your Angel, Quantum Mechanics or The Universe (please add Capitals everywhere, this is important).

For me, it’s useless to try to guess, because you will never know. Use all of it, though! Coincidences and signs, good intuitions, instinct, speed, meeting the right persons at the perfect time, this is all magic and a source of joy and amazement. Dance with them, c’est la vie !

But.

Irony of life is very powerful too. You meet the right person, but at the wrong moment. You encounter failure and betrayal, craziness, slowing downs or closed doors. Everything seems to brake. You make bad choices, you’re wrong. You probably expected too much, or in the wrong way, and life begins to slap your face and hit your skull, ouchy! Coincidences are stupidly useless, signs become dirty fuchsia feathers in a gutter.

Okeyyy so what? Your exhibition is a mess, your published book has no success at all, your future wife chose another guy, your startup starts to go down, c’est la merde, oui ?

“Time to move forward” and “Keep smiling” and “You build your own Happiness” don’t work for the moment. Try, and you’ll feel (and look) ridiculous. Insisting is wrong. Curiously, everybody “needs space” around you. And in space, nobody can hear you scream!

It’s time to wait, to park, to rest, to think. Shipwrecked, sailor! Castaway!

Find a corner. Narrow your goals. Regroup. Think without overthink. Put some puzzle pieces. Find your peace. Or scream, OK, but inside your belly. Real screams annoys everyone…

OK, in your car, on the highway : SCREAM!

Then, also, do something unusual.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : katrinalbertnyc

#smile #Snoopy

#Collage & Cie – Cutting out paper as a #Meditation #Flow

Bonjour Tristesse! You are very lost, sad, alone (pick one, or both, or threeth), you don’t know how to deal with yourself anymore. Nor others, right? So what?

Some days… you just need to invent a sadness corner.

I knowww, you “should go outside to meet people”, take photos, watch a movie, keep smiling, etc. But of course you are not able to do anything.

You can meditate (but you’ll fall asleep). Knitting is a solution, but you have to know how to, silly! Drinking is not. Or maybe, well… coloring books? Nahh.

For some wounds, there’s no recovery : you just learn how to live with them, and wait.

OK, knitting. Or… cutting papers. It’s easier!

More than 25 years ago, I salvaged a huge point-of-sale display, my size, a big solid rectangle cardboard. On difficult days I began to cut out photos in magazines and newspapers, and I gluesticked them on it.

It’s simple and easy to do, and it keeps your brain and fingers busy. You have to find your magazine, choose what to cut and decide where to stick the picture, this in a loop.

Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : such_a_pretty_crazy

Working with what you have… today

When I was 25 I complained to a friend of mine who was 40, a painter. I was composing music slowly and in a bitter way because I was missing instruments, equipment, etc. I had a Macintosh, a mic, a synth, a reverb and a flute.

In art or life, sometimes we feel stuck, therefore we don’t do anything, because we “miss something”, we don’t have enough of this or that : we just wait, bored like a lonely koala in the taiga.

So we just “watch a goal”, a state or a line where, at last, we will be able to begin.

THEN we will have enough time, enough money, enough energy to do it!

I will… paint, compose, be happy, invent, write, blog, learn, the day I will have this or that, blah blah blah…

This is procrastination, laziness & threnody. Sometimes it’s useful to wait, though…

My friend told me I was silly, and, as a painter, that if she only had a pen and paper she would work. “Do something with your flute and your keyboard, instead of complaining, silly!”.

Okey. Watch around. Pick up a tool. Begin. To begin : begin, as they say. Now. That’s true!

…unless you don’t work for another reason, using this syndrome to do nothing. Rhoooo this is baaaad!

Bonne journée!

Instagram : taranewton1

The sadness of Chekhovian heroins is ours

Anton Chekhov wrote a few plays, and hundreds of short stories.

When you read him, the “archetype” of the Chekhovian Heroin begins to appear in your head.

She’s a woman. She’s sensitive. She dreams of another life. She’s a bit sad.

Here are three examples.

A stormy day, a man, with drops of water in his beard, says a declaration of love to a young woman. She ignores him. Years later, they both live alone. They are still in contact. She cries on her lost life, the time flowing, the too lates. (A Lady’s Story)

A butterfly-minded spouse is unable to see the value and the kindness of her husband, and realizes it too late. (The Grasshopper)

A young woman takes on the ideas and habits of every man she loves. People laugh at her, and at the end she is lost and alone. (The Darling)

There’s a lot to learn by reading Chekhov : We all do what we can. We fail because we’re afraid, or we think we know. Life is short and we should dare more. And we all are a little stupid, and ridiculous…

Most of his short stories are free on the web. You’ll also find many “Selected Short Stories” in book. I assure you : it’s better than many Self-Help books!

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : bodylanguage

 

 

 

Overthinking Ways

The memory is cursed with what hasn’t happened, says Marguerite Duras, and that’s a good example of overthinking. In fact, it’s the seed of a whole tree!

What are ways of overthinking? What are the subjects? The past (what it’s been, what it could have been). The future(s). About what you did or will do (or say). And I’ll stop it here : you perfectly know your ways of overthinking!

What are the ways OUT of this curse (which it is, right?). Most books show these paths :

1. Mindfulness
2. Dare and do something

Voilà! You just saved a bunch of money! Put these books back in the shelves!

1 Mindfulness is a way to focus on the now (let the past sleep/just enable the future) – well, you can try!

2 Acting-Doing has many good effects, from “keeping you busy” to “stop thinking a bit”, by way of “changing what I can”… instead of thinking about it.

Tool :

Of course you can use another path, which could be “smart overthinking”, taking a wheel (if you find it) to drive it somewhere else, to tame it, to use it, to link it with others – or with books (which is the same), to divide it up like a sheaf, to make it a dance, to fight it, to… What about you?

You go girl! Merci et bonne route! Thanks for reading.

 

 

Seeking Approval as a source of energy?

Just google “seeking approval” to discover what you already know : this is baaad, and shame on you!

To be a normal adult shouldn’t be about doing things “just to get approved”, right? Nevertheless, some of us… do what they can.

Many Internet activities use this seek of approval motivation we all have in us, from the Facebook “likes” to the number-of-followers you are happy to have on Instagram, or on your blog.

OK, this is bad and childish and narcissistic, but it’s also incurable, deal with it! Therefore what can you do? Use it, and try to keep a little dignity. Keep your seekness invisible, or you’ll look like a duck-face “love my selfie” chick…

Seeking approval can be a source of motivation. If you work well partly because of this need, good for you! Be guilty, but not too much. Voilà!

But…

What’s the best : a bunch of thoughtless empty “likes” from unknown people, or one smartcunning criticism from an intelligent person you love? 

Thanks for reading! Follow my blog 🙂

Instagram : noamfrost

 

 

 

Fruitful Constraints & Creativity

It’s an old tool many artists know : many constraints are fruitful. Mainly because a constraint is a problem calling for a solution, therefore you have to move, to be creative.

All jobs and activities have constraints : budget, environment, other people, time, space, your skills, your tools.

If it’s too loose, though, you feel a freedom, which can be messy. You can not catch anything. Stuck. You maybe need to tight something up, to find “your” freedom within a new frame.

Brian Eno invented the Oblique Strategies (mainly for musicians) as a card game. You pick a card and you have to obey (sometimes it’s terrible!). Some directors are well known to tell the actors to follow precisely something (the dialogs, or the places they have to move on the set, etc) before shooting. Some digital artists sometimes go out in a park with a pencil and a notebook. A photographer can go outside with the limit of 20 pictures taken, not much. And G. Perec wrote an entire book without the letter “e”.

Constraints are fruitful. You probably have many disposable levers for these. A poet can obey : write something in alexandrine; without any letter “p”, in less than 5 minutes. You may have to present a project in ONE minute only, and… with no words. What are your levers?

You can pull a lever to Zero, it’s the Total Constraint. For example, you’re a photographer and you go out without any camera. Just your eye. You’ll feel the need, you’ll feel your brain simmering. As you can only watch and… think, you’ll maybe have bursts of ideas (instead of taking pictures).

Of course it’s an example of “Amor Fati”, being content with what happens to you, even if it seems bad. Embracing fate : every constraint, if you can’t avoid it, should (and will have to) be danced with.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : f_pilvi

What doesn’t kill you makes you str… No it kills you! #Nietzsche

Nietzsche wrote “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger”, ain’t it… satisfying?

In action movies, it’s a strong frowned eyebrows phrase, and then let’s go fight the evil evilness!

In a self-help book, it’s more like a hidden injunction. “You suffer? OK! But not too long, please! Now stand up and move forward”, you’ll heal, blah blah and triple blah.

In reality, what doesn’t kill you… leaves deep scars, lets you feel miserable for a long time, puts your game all puzzled down on the ground. You’re done, bawl a bit and all.

But, aaaaall right. Stand up. It did not kill you, right? One more scar, it’s charming. Weaker maybe, you’ll hide it. You’ll find a way, and will do your best. I hope so!

Amor Fati, because you have too.

Thanks for reading!

Axes, Axis, Axles : “Become who you are”

Among all the empty phrases we find everywhere in the Self Help garden rubbish, I love this one :

“Become who you are”

You could examine this for hours just for having fun, like in front of a stupid golden loop, an exploding immobility, a… mysterious goal. Because, oui, bien sûr : how the hell could I become another person but who I am? Google it if you want, you’ll find the habitual waste : sunsets, roads, inspirational landscapes…

But Okayyyy, there’s something right into it. Which is this : we grow up, we become adults, and when we reach the middle of our life, where we know ourselves more :

• Some parts of us became soft and rotten, they went to pieces and fell.
• Some other parts became more solid, muscled.

A double process! From this process, some axes cleared and appeared, voilà. This is or these are your strong lines. I can be to “find love”, to be a wife, to take care of others, to be a parent, to work, to travel or to be creative. Your find, one day, your dominant trait. You became who you are… or at least,  you know more… what you would like to be!

There can be, I’m sure, some inferior axes : being famous, to be entertained continuously (bonjour kidults!), piling money, or to “appear happy” in the social media selfies big dumpster. Whatever : comes a day you know what is your main Axis.

The uncompleteness we all know (“something’s lacking in my life, but what?”) could ensue from the gap between what we do and what we should do, according to our axes. “Become who you are” could be a way to fill in this gap…

One could imagine that we invent some false axes : the real one then could show up suddenly after a shock or a crisis.

Take the exemple of the Sylvia Plath syndrome, a person who absolutely wants to publish a book. One day, the book is there, and the axis disappeared immediately : it leaves this person completely indifferent. We could call this the “So what” disillusion. This needs another article, right?

Axis disappearance. Axis revelation. Axes are maybe like milk teeth : you have some when you’re young, then another one emerges when you become an adult. Become who you are. Okayyyyy…

Thanks for reading!

“If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.” #tagore #quote

“If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.”

 

“Si vous fermez la porte à toutes les erreurs, la vérité restera dehors.”

 

– Rabindranath Tagore –

“Biases to Pieces” – when life goes wrong, do something unusual – #change

When something goes wrong in our lives, we try to find solutions, we meet people or therapists, we try to entertain, we read, we think, we cry, et cetera.

There’s also this oblique tool : do something unusual. Change something, hair, paths, house, habits, anything. Dare, and be a little more casual. Breathe a new air, open unusual windows. This is a beginning. It can work, or not. So what?

If you know how to wait, your “charge” will inflate up until you’ll explode into a solution. This is where you will be able to say afterwards : “I can’t even recognize my own soul”, which is another way to say “What did I do?”. So what??

Whatever! : change was urgent, and needed.

Tools :

Stay on you horse, let go the reins, and go faster. Let the horse choose.

Your need to be disturbed is there, and it’s HUGE. Try disturbing paths. Push unknown doors. Walk forward in unknown places and ways.

Do the contrary. Love the guy you don’t love. Choose the opposite. Say no to your yesses and yes to your nos. Try random. Be crazy. Quit. Don’t explain. Shut up and move. Search for your fears and attack them. Slam the door to reason’s face and listen to your guts. Find your wolf inside (or your dark parrot). Take your biases to pieces. Burn your bridges. Or not. Or for a moment. Step inside, step back, breathe back home. Push nugget-risks inside the grey. Find your explosives. Use them where you never did. Bam.

Merci ! Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : thejohnnysmith

Opposite Course/Wrong Foot – Another type of Self Help “Be Happy!” Books

Almost all of these “Self Help” books tell the same thing : be strong, wake up early, don’t look in the past, find new goals, move forward, be mindful, accept the reality, be happy, smile, be positive, have hope, succeed, quit toxic people, surround with good energy friends, build very high expectations and reach your goals, love yourself, you’re perfect…

L’injonction au bonheur / Injunction to be happy, mhh?

I noticed, though, that the most interesting books tells us something else :

1. It’s always more complex
2. You are not perfect and you will never be and the path is complicated
3. The contrary of these “injunctions” is probably true too

Voilà. It’s a game you can activate by yourself. Find the Opposite Course books. Or borrow the typical ones, and, just for fun, try to fight them.

• Being weak is useful and slows you down from grey or wrong goals
• Being positive “on demand” is just impossible because you have no cursor for that.
• Quitting “toxic people” is not easy, and they are not as-toxic-as-that, it’s maybe a wrong opinion, and maybe they can help you in an oblique way.
• If you expect too high you may just don’t reach it, and you’ll despair…
• Etc.

Can you REALLY wake up and smile? Every single morning? Don’t you look like a freaky frog?

Allez! Have a nice splendid day!

 

 

 

The only thing you can count on, it’s the change

 

 

 

Ask your closest friend : “What do I do wrong?” – #friendship #goals #coaching

It’s just a tool and the title says everything :

Ask your closest friend : “What do I do wrong?”

Maybe you have a clue and you want to ask him or her (now I say her) about a problem you have. You both know you have to talk. Prepare a tea, free up an afternoon, and you go girls!

This idea is different, it’s more like : you just want to watch your best friend in the eyes and ask for truth. It’s different and it’s rare. “I ask you to tell me : in your opinion, what do I do wrong?”.

YES it’s asking for “friend-coaching”, and why not?

You have to be aware, both of you. This could lead to dangerous paths, or… uncomfortable discoveries! Set the rules, chillbreathe and let’s go. You are both smart. I know that.

It’s a variation of this article : When you friends are so close that you organize arguments for pleasure. But it’s not for fun, or to teach, or to wander delightfully in the Kingdom of Ideas. It’s about you. Your friend knows your soil and your inner axles. Listen to her, carefully!

Hug, then.

Merci et bonne journée!

Art by Jessica Hess

 

Why do you blog? The mess of #motivation theories – #blogging

Ah that good question it is, “Why do you blog?”. You can pick another one if you want : Why to you run? Why do you paint? Why do you shop? Why do you have sex?

I use it as a pretext to write about Motivation Theories, which are a whole messy basket of attempts to explain why I do something.

Why do you blog? Well, it depends…

• You want to grow, to accomplish something
• You want new competences
• You want to meet people, affiliation
• You need to express yourself
• You believe in it
• You need more self-esteem
• You want money, or a job
• You want power, you want to influence people
• You want to be rewarded, posititive feedbacks, recognition
• You want to impress someone, or a group
• You want to be heard, you want readers, followers
• You think it’s a way to gain something else, to enter something
• It’s interesting
• You fear something, like punishment
• You need a goal, a discipline, a frame, to push yourself
• You are pulled, or triggered by something, orders for example
• You need schedules, to be driven by something
• You need to be busy, tasks
• You need to forget something else
• You want to reduce something 
• Expectancy
• You want to meet your future husband or your wife
• Motivation needs to become words and expression
• You want or need to explain yourself
• You search something and you find it little by little
• You need to be productive, to produce something, to have results
• You like numbers, statistics, you count visitors, likes, followers
• You’re drunk

If you want to find more, Google “Motivation“, that’s really funny to dig. At the end, I found one day a single way to express this mess (your reason you blog is a melting cheese of reasons, right?) that could be the ultimate height of social motivation :

You blog, because you want to be loved

Thanks for reading!

Fleeing Pressure the Wrong Way

A clever kid! His parents want him to be the successful guy of the family. He will become a doctor!! He studies hard, hard, hard, under pressure, and… gets Multiple Sclerosis – or a motorbike accident.

Pressure! There are so many ways to pressure someone. Orders. Injunctions. Work.

There are many ways to shunflee strong moral pressure. If you’re a strong adult you just accept it fiercely, or you quit, you fight, you learn detachment – you protect your mental territory. There are so many ways to resist discreetly : sabotage, inner resistance, sarcasm, preparing revenge or a funny stunt. Escaping ways…

If you are a child, if you’re weaker than the pressure-provider, if you are stuck or prisoner of the situation, you can’t resist.

Then your body takes over.

Your body will find a way to say stop. Can’t stop the source of pressure? He’ll stop you!

Nervous breakdown. Burn-out. Accident. Serious disease. Somatization. It’s just a burst of resistance, and a full stop, most of the time. Against moral pressure, the last shunning way to say “fuque off”.

Tool/dial : Watch yourself. In both ways.

 

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See also : “Be Spontaneous, please”

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Thanks for reading!

Break Ups & Taking Things into Consideration

This winter I’ve been invited for lunch by a couple, I spent a delicious day talking with them and other friends, and the lady of the house lent me a CD of the music composed by… her ex-husband.

I was amazed by that, because divorced people have a nasty tendency to hate everything linked to their ex-lover – they love solemn dramas, probably.

If your love has a talent (for photography, poetry, writing, composing, lecturing or singing), why the hell this person would become a Dumb Zero once the love story is over??? Mmhh?

“Taking things into consideration” is a simple good tool (we say “Faire la part des choses” in French, “to make portions of things” which makes sense, I think) :

Take the pie, cut the love off : the person stays the same! Magic!

“Listen to this CD, tell me if you like it!”, with a big smile : her ex was good in this area. And well, he stayed a good composer…

Or… if you said to your crush he/she’s a good photographer, and you really don’t think he/she is, it means that… oh no, no no no no no no : that’s impossible, right?

Thanks for reading!